* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Solar observatory

Blobrana · L

The Thirteen Towers solar observatory

Blobrana · L

Chankillo

Blobrana · L

RE: Solar observatory

Blobrana · L

Eleven ancient wonders observed from space and seen from Google Earth. With audio commentary.

Chankillo Observatory, Peru. Caral, Peru. Pueblo Bonita, New Mexico. Cahokia, Illinois. Old Sarum, England. Pyramids of Guimar, Tenerife. Adam's Bridge, Indian ocean. Persepolis, Iran. Great Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq. Great Mosque of Samarra. The Arch at Ctesiphon, Iraq.

Blobrana · L

Chankillo

Blobrana · L

Solar observatory

Blobrana · L

The 2,300-year-old site points to a sophisticated culture that used the dramatic alignment of the sun and the structures for political and ceremonial effects, the researchers said.
A line of 13 stone towers that top a coastal hillside in Peru are in fact the Western Hemisphere's oldest solar observatory, researchers said on Thursday.

Read more

Blobrana · L

A 2,300 year old solar observatory in Peru has been identified by new research published today (March 2), in the journal Science, by archaeologists from the University of Leicester and Yale University.

Read more

Archaeologists from Yale and the University of Leicester have identified an ancient solar observatory at Chankillo, Peru as the oldest in the Americas with alignments covering the entire solar year, according to an article in the March 2 issue of Science.
Recorded accounts from the 16th century A.D. detail practices of state-regulated sun worship during Inca times, and related social and cosmological beliefs. These speak of towers being used to mark the rising or setting position of the sun at certain times in the year, but no trace of the towers has ever been found. This paper reports the earliest structures that support those writings.

Read more

The first solar observatory in the Americas may have been uncovered in coastal Peru. The ceremonial site provides evidence of sophisticated 'cults of the Sun' operating in South America as early as 2300 years ago.

Read more

Blobrana · L

Archaeologists have solved the mystery of the Thirteen Towers, a line of low stone structures that have spanned an arid Peruvian slope like a massive set of prehistoric teeth for 2,400 years. The towers lined up outside the citadel at Chankillo are a massive solar observatory that marks not only the summer and winter solstices, but also the days and weeks of the year. The evidence that they are an observatory is unequivocal.

"It seems extraordinary that an ancient astronomical device as clear as this could have remained undiscovered for so long" - Clive Ruggles, a professor of archaeo-astronomy at the University of Leicester and one of the authors of the paper in today's issue of the journal Science..

The site is not the oldest solar observatory in the New World. That honour goes to a 4,200-year-old site just north of Lima, Peru's capital, that marks the solstices. Other ancient structures have been found that clearly have astronomical alignments.

"Unlike all the other sites, however, (Chankillo) contains alignments that cover the entire solar year" - coauthor Ivan Ghezzi, who was a graduate student at Yale University when he did the work but is now archaeological director of the National Culture Institute in Lima.

In effect, it is the oldest 'full-service observatory' in the Western Hemisphere. The finding is important because of the insight it provides on the culture of the indigenous peoples, who were ancestors of the Inca.

Source Los Angeles Times